


This One's For You

by CircularShades



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Fluff, Karaoke, M/M, Slice of Life, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-14 23:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CircularShades/pseuds/CircularShades
Summary: On a drunken whim, Aziraphale suggests the two of them go out. To a pub.





	This One's For You

"Let's get out of here. I'd like to go somewhere."

Crowley hummed around a mouthful of wine, tilting his head back to consider. Aziraphale was right, he thought. They didn't need to be all clandestine about things anymore — they could go anywhere. He swallowed, and announced the first idea off the top of his head: " _Iceland._I wanna see the Northern Lights."[1]  


"Out," Aziraphale clarified neatly, from his armchair, "to a  _pub_. I don't want to go terribly far away. At least not tonight."

Crowley shrugged the one shoulder that wasn't leaning against a bookcase. "Okay, so we'll go to a pub." It was unusual of Aziraphale to suggest it, but Crowley was at least half a wine bottle past asking unnecessary questions, and he could easily think up his own list of reasons to head out. 'The Earth still exists and so do we' went right at the top, and you know what? He was going to just stop there, because that was enough. "Got one in mind?"

"No, but it's - it's London! We should go out and find something. I know there's several establishments nearby." Aziraphale stood, only a bit uneasily. Crowley took one more generous swig out of the wine bottle before offering the remainder. Aziraphale took a pause before drinking to let a smile bloom on his face, the sort he got sometimes that made him look like he was so in love with... everything. "I just want to be out among _humanity_."

It was well past dark out, and Soho was absolutely buzzing. This was a general indicator of the time of week, but Crowley hadn't cared about specific days for... he couldn't say how long, which was rather the point. This time right here? This was the breathing space. Both of them knew neither Heaven nor Hell were going to act quickly. They could let hours and days blur together, at least for a while. Since the Ritz, they had spent more time together than apart, separating for brief periods to listen to the lack of chatter, to make sure they still weren't missing anything, and to give them some new things to talk about the next time they met.

Aziraphale seemed to be basking in the energy of the city tonight. Crowley couldn't say whether he was acting completely on a whim, here, or whether he was actually looking for something specific. Crowley  _was_ starting to wonder why they had already passed three pubs without Aziraphale saying a word.

"What was wrong with that one?" he tried to ask, craning his neck back to watch the latest establishment they were drifting past. Aziraphale's attention had already moved on to another pub down the road. There was a sandwich board outside the place, advertising in chalk block letters:

"Karaoke!" Aziraphale exclaimed. "I've done karaoke before. In —" Between his drunkenness and the attempt to announce the place name properly, it slurred quite a bit: "— Harajuku."

"Gesundheit." Crowley snickered.

"You get your own little room, with colored lights, and nice sofas, and you get to pick the songs."

"Yeah, this is not  _quite_  like that."

"I want to go in!" Aziraphale was moving toward the door, out of which they could already hear an enthusiastically off-key rendition of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time.' There was no way Aziraphale didn't hear it. This was  _not_ his usual scene. And yet there he was, scurrying, as well as he _could_  scurry under their impaired circumstances, toward the sound. When he'd suggested going out, Crowley had figured they'd wind up in one of those neighborhood pubs, the sort with a dog. _Now_ it was strange enough to comment on.

"A pub on karaoke night," Crowley mused, sauntering after his angel, feeling his mouth pull into a delighted grin even as he asked: "Who  _are_ you?"

* * *

Aziraphale had not meant to land them at a karaoke night when he'd suggested going out. He hadn't known what he was looking for when they'd stepped onto the pavement. He'd only felt like he was looking for something the places they passed didn't have. That thing was not even, necessarily, karaoke — but once he'd seen the sign, Aziraphale had thought karaoke  _might as well_   _be_ that thing.

It was, as Crowley had said, not quite like the experience in Japan. It was one room, crowded, a bar lining one wall, a single low stage for a performance area, a single man collecting slips of paper and calling people up to take the microphone. There _were_ colored lights.

One of the limited number of booths was, miraculously, becoming available just as they stepped close to it. The noise was far more tolerable once they had a small semblance of privacy. The noise was part of the point. This was, in some small way, what they'd striven for: the chance for these people to come here and sing, for no reason other than that they enjoyed it. For no reason other than being alive.

A few songs passed, and Aziraphale found himself with an idea. It came with a side of the sort of feeling he used to think of as the sign of a bad decision. A clench of apprehension at his physical core, a nervous fluttering like butterflies under his ribs. For most of his life, that feeling had never felt like anything other than a very loud warning.

Then... then, he'd found himself caught between a bad decision and a worse one; or, as he'd now come to understand it, a terrible decision and a  _risky_ one. He'd had a very strong bad-decisionfeeling looking down at the Earth, preparing to fling himself down there against orders, in search of a body he couldn't know he'd actually find, in pursuit of stopping a war both Heaven and Hell were dead-set on. It was only, when contrasted with the choice of donning that uniform and lining up to take charge of his platoon, the way his moral center leaped away from the concept like a hand off a hot iron, the 'bad' choice had become the far better one. The only one, really.

Apprehension was not always the harbinger of the wrong choice. Sometimes, all it meant was you didn't know what was going to happen after. Sometimes, that was all right. Sometimes, it could be more than all right.[2]

The next thing he knew, he was passing the 'disc jockey' a slip of paper.

* * *

Crowley didn't mind a bit of people-watching. He preferred, when watching people sing, that they be actually good at it, but for the moment, he was making a general exception. This was already so much _not_ where he expected the night to lead that he was going along with it just to see what happened. He was also weighing the odds that he'd have to stop Aziraphale from asking the DJ if he couldn't turn the volume down _just_ a touch.

Aziraphale stood up — to get more wine, Crowley thought at first. Except no, they'd hardly made a dent in the bottle they'd ordered. Maybe he  _was_ going to make a comment about the volume. Crowley was starting to shift his way out of the booth to save Aziraphale from himself, only... Aziraphale wasn't going directly to the DJ. He was stopping at the table with all the little paper bits, picking it over until he found a pen. Writing something down. Crowley watched him pop back up like a meerkat, point himself at the DJ, and deliver the paper. He watched Aziraphale nod to the DJ, turn, and head back toward their booth.

Crowley leaned his forearms on the table in front of him. Aziraphale was sitting down, and Crowley's face, his whole attention, was turned toward him.

"You just signed up for a song."

Aziraphale reached for his wine glass. He wasn't looking at Crowley. Crowley wrinkled his nose.

"What in the Heaven are you going to sing?"

"I'm not telling."

"You're gonna do it —"

"Stop."

"— in front of all these people?"

"Don't try and talk me out of it!"

"This is not talkin' out. No talkin' out. It's not. I just wanna know." Crowley leaned in closer. "What are you going to sing."

"I'm not saying!" Aziraphale insisted in a foot-putting-down sort of way, and finally took another drink. Crowley kept up the pointedly-leaning-in for another breath, then sat back.

"S'not a duet, is it? Cause that could be a really bad idea." Mostly because, while angel voices were perfectly calibrated for Heavenly choirs, demons were notoriously bad singers. Not just mundanely bad: Crowley knew that if he made an earnest attempt, there was every chance he could short out the DJ's equipment. Might make a few ears bleed.

Seeming now too flustered to speak, Aziraphale only shook his head. Crowley felt the urge to push the needle in just a  _bit_ further.

"Do they even have Sondheim here?"

" _Behave._ "

Oh, that had been a _look._ But it had been a drunk look, which somewhat dampened the seriousness of it. Crowley grinned, and decided his work here was done. He let Aziraphale have a bit of peace[3], at least until he thought up a proper comeback.

"If I ever behaved," he said eventually, leaning forward again. "We wouldn't be talking now."

Aziraphale tipped his head in thought before concluding: "You've got a point there."

* * *

 

"Next up to the mic is..." the DJ paused for a beat. "...Afell? Afell, you're up!"

Aziraphale put down his glass. His eyes were wide, like an over-excited dog's. "I think that's me."

"Is it — is it —" Crowley was trying to get one more dig in before Aziraphale stood up, but his brain was tripping over the wine, and Aziraphale was already standing. "— is it 'Modern Major General?' Please tell me it's not."

Aziraphale made his way through the crowd in starts and stops, too-politely nudging people to one side — "Excuse me" — until he stepped up onto the stage. The DJ passed him the wireless microphone, and Aziraphale turned to address the crowd, which was mostly continuing to mill about.

"Hello." He gave his captive audience a nod, then went to direct one at the DJ. "Maestro —"

But the speakers were already blaring out a gentle piano riff. The screens above the stage lit up with a title card.

[ _YOUR SONG — performed by ELTON JOHN_ ](https://open.spotify.com/track/38zsOOcu31XbbYj9BIPUF1?si=OSyJ96r-TSuQCclYtA0gzA)

Crowley’s eyebrows lifted high over his shades. He didn't have much time to be surprised before the lyrics started.

"It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside,  
I'm not one of those who can easily hide..."

Most angels could sing. In this respect, Aziraphale was  _not_  the exception. The wine had dragged his singing ability away from pure perfection — there was some slurring between notes, a hint of over-caution in his annunciation of the lyrics. But the sweet tone of Aziraphale's voice carried through all the same.

"I don't have much money but boy if I did,   
I'd buy a big house where we both could live..."

He was glancing at the lyrics, but there was no hesitation on the notes, the rhythm of the delivery. The angel knew Elton.

Crowley leaned his chin into his hand, settling in.

"If I was a sculptor, but then again, no,  
Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show..."

Oh,  _Satan._ Aziraphale actually did a little bounce on the balls of his feet and a flourishing hand motion on that line. Crowley couldn't help the almost-laugh that puffed out one side of his mouth.

"Oh I know it's not much but it's the best I can do:  
My gift is my song, and this one's for you."

He wasn't looking at Crowley. He wasn’t looking at anyone. He was looking over the heads of the crowd — until the breath between the verse and the chorus. Then Aziraphale’s eyes caught on Crowley, as if checking that he was paying attention, before quickly jogging away toward somewhere very much else.

Something inside Crowley went very still. Aziraphale had stilled, too, since that little flourish, his hand lowering to hang at his side, half-curled into a fist. His eyes skated along the floor before finding their way, again, toward the back wall.

"And you can tell everybody this is your song   
It may be quite simple, but now that it's done   
I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind   
That I put down in words   
How wonderful life is while you're in the world."

There was still plenty of background noise. People were still carrying out conversations, placing orders at the bar, letting glass clink against tables. Crowley still felt _something_ change in the room. An adjustment in the levels. A focus shift. Maybe that was just him.

Aziraphale was making a valiant attempt to relax into his performance a bit more. He shook out his hand, tugged briefly at the edge of his vest to straighten it, eventually slipped the hand into his pocket.

"I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss   
Well, a few of the verses, well they've got me quite cross   
But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song   
It's for people like you that keep it turned on..."

Crowley watched as Aziraphale lifted his face and shut his eyes, as if he _was_ standing in the sun, taking strength and a sense of peace from its warmth.

Then Aziraphale opened his eyes again. Half-opened. He was back to being a drunk angel singing karaoke in a Soho pub.

"So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do:  
You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue..."

He was delivering the lines almost conversationally, now. Still very much _singing_ , but with a casual matter-of-fact-ness. He still wasn't looking at anyone else. But he looked like he was singing _for_ someone, and that someone made him happy.

"Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean..."

Then his gaze swung around to Crowley, and stopped again. And Aziraphale shrugged, like — might as well.

"Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."

Crowley felt the smile slowly spreading on his face, and couldn't bring himself to stop it.

 

 _And you can tell everybody this is your song_  
_It may be quite simple, but n_ _ow that it's done_  
_I hope you don't mind, I_ _hope you don't mind_  
_That I put down in words_  
_How wonderful life is while you're in the world_

  
_I hope you don't mind,_ _I hope you don't mind_  
_That I put down in words_  
_How wonderful life is while you're in the world_

* * *

 

When Aziraphale nudged his way through the crowd and back to their booth, Crowley stood up to greet him with his arms wide, his smile beaming. "Aziraphale, that was  _amazing_! I didn't know you knew any Elton!"

"I've been expanding my musical repertoire." Aziraphale was beaming back, reaching out to balance himself by grasping Crowley's shoulder, leaning in so he could speak over the crowd and the music. "I've also started listening to _The Beatles_."

Crowley clapped a hand onto the angel's shoulder in turn, gave it a firm squeeze. "I'm so proud of you."

Aziraphale's smile tightened. His free hand tapped in a light, fast rhythm against Crowley's chest. All that nervous energy he must have built up in order to perform hadn't burned off yet. "Your turn. You should sing something."

Crowley pouted as he drained his wine glass. He hardly thought he could follow that performance, especially with a blow-out of the sound equipment. Besides — a thought was occurring to him.

"No — not just me." He shook his head, put down the empty glass, and started to move before Aziraphale could question or protest. "I have an idea."

When it came around to their turn again, 'Afell' and 'A.J.' were called up to perform The Beatles' 'Revolution.' Crowley had to sing wildly off-key in order to not break anything, and the microphone still fed back a bit in protest, but really, that only added to the atmosphere.[4]

 _When you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out_  
_Don't you know it's gonna be all right,_  
_All right, all right..._

**Author's Note:**

> 1Crowley had thought about suggesting the Northern Lights a few times before now. They reminded him of nebulae, and while he didn't expect him and Aziraphale to be going into outer space anytime soon, he'd put the idea into his own head with all the talk of running off together. Now he kind of felt like seeing the closest thing, before they worked their way up to a space holiday.[return to text]
> 
> 2Of course, sometimes it _was_ actually the harbinger of a bad decision. One had to take these things on a case-by-case basis, and just because a thing was frightening didn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. That was the point.[return to text]
> 
> 3As much peace as _could_ be had, while a man holding the mic too close to his lips sang 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' with a mouth even mushier than Cobain's.[return to text]
> 
> 4Eventually, the two of them would head out of the pub toward the next leg of their evening. For an hour after their departure, every person who was handed the mic found themselves performing a song by Queen.[return to text]


End file.
